- Animals
- ›Chordates
- ›Vertebrates
- ›Birds
- ›Hawks, Eagles, Kites, and Allies
- ›Hawks, Eagles, and Kites
- ›Harpy Eagles and allies
- ›Macheiramphus
On eBird ↗
Bat Hawk
Live sightings near you, the range map, bar charts of when it is seen, and Macaulay Library photos and recordings.
Bat Hawk
Macheiramphus alcinus
The bat hawk (Macheiramphus alcinus) is a raptor found in sub-Saharan Africa and south Asia to New Guinea. It is named for its diet, which consists mainly of bats. It requires open space in which to hunt, but will live anywhere from dense rainforest to semi-arid veld.
From the article Bat hawk on Wikipedia (CC BY-SA), quoted section by section
Description
The bat hawk is a slender, medium-sized bird of prey, 45 cm long and weighing 600–650 grams. It has long wings and a falcon-like silhouette while in flight. Adults are dark brown or black, with a white patch on the throat and chest, and have a white streak above and below each eye. Juveniles are mottled brown and have more white plumage than adults.
In human culture
The genus name is from Greek: μαχαιρα makhaira meaning knife; and ῥαμφος rhamphos, bill. The specific epithet alcinus means like an auk, from Linnaeus' genus Alca, which is also a reference to the bat hawk's thin bill.
Wikipedia: “Etymology”
Listen
Looking for field recordings…
Where it lives
Recorded sightings
—
geo-referenced records in GBIF, from museums, herbaria and field observers.
Drag the globe to turn it. Dots are where records exist, not a range map; darker means more records.
In the stacks
Searching the stacks…
Every page naming Macheiramphus alcinus in the Biodiversity Heritage Library →
This page is assembled live from iNaturalist, GBIF, Wikipedia, the Source Library and the Internet Archive. It is not yet part of the hand-edited codex. iNaturalist taxon 5409.